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Last week HTC invited Matt to a little press event to discuss their new flagship phone; the HTC One. Gareth and Matt meet up to chat about the new phone and Matt tries to conceal his excitement. He doesn’t succeed.

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By now you have probably see the news and press releases about the new HTC One but here’s my summary ‘review’ of the HTC One that I had chance to play with last week. Obviously this isn’t a full review of the HTC One but rather my initial take on the device as well as some coverage of the features and summary of the information we were given at the briefing last week.

I have to open by saying that the HTC One is probably the most interesting Android phone I have seen in some time and there’s a raft of new and cool things in there plus the design is stunning!

We’ve known about a new flagship device coming from HTC for a while and there has been plenty of rumours about the device codenamed HTC M7. There were some leaks a few weeks ago and claims that the M7 would launch as the HTC One and they have proven to be quite correct.

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At a series of special events in a number of cities today, HTC have officially announced the HTC One.

The flagship Android device has been the subject of various leaks and rumours over the past few months and we’ve formerly known of the device by its codename, HTC M7.

I’ve had a chance to play with this handset already and can tell you that I am really excited about this device, cant wait to get hands on the review unit. Until then, here is the press release and we’ll have a few more posts about the HTC One coming up shortly!

London and New York City, February 19, 2013 – HTC, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, today announced its new flagship smartphone, the new HTC One. Crafted with a distinct zero-gap aluminium unibody, the new HTC One introduces HTC BlinkFeedT, HTC ZoeT and HTC

BoomSoundT, key new HTC Sense® innovationsthat reinvent the mobile experience and set a new standard for smartphones.

“People today immerse themselves in a constant stream of updates, news and information. Although smartphones are one of the main ways we stay in touch with the people and information we care about, conventional designs have failed to keep pace with how people are actually using them,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “A new, exciting approach to the smartphone is needed and with the new HTC One, we have re-imagined the mobile experience from the ground up to reflect this new reality.”

HTC BlinkFeed: A personal live stream right on the home screenAt the centre of the new HTC One experience is HTC BlinkFeed. HTC BlinkFeed is a bold new experience that transforms the home screen into a single live stream of personally relevant information such as social updates, entertainment and lifestyle updates, news and photos with immersive images so that people no longer need to go to separate applications to find out what’s happening. HTC BlinkFeed aggregates the freshest content from the most relevant and interesting sources, giving it to people at a glance, all in one place, without the need to jump between multiple applications and web sites.

To enable this new dynamic approach to the smartphone, HTC will provide both local and global content from more than 1,400 media sources with more than 10,000 articles per day from some of the most innovative media companies, such as the AOL family of media properties, ESPN, MTV, Vice Media, CoolHunting, Reuters and many others. For more information on HTC BlinkFeed’s content partners, visit the HTC Blog.

HTC UltraPixel Camera with HTC Zoe

The breakthrough HTC UltraPixel Camera redefines how people capture, relive and share their most precious moments. HTC Zoe gives people the ability to shoot high-res photos that come to life in three-second snippets. These Zoes, photos and videos are then displayed in a unique way that brings the gallery to life and transforms the traditional photo gallery of still images into a motion gallery of memories. It also automatically creates integrated highlight films from each event comprised of Zoes, photos and videos set to music with professionally designed cuts, transitions and effects. These highlight videos can be remixed or set to different themes, and can be easily shared on social networks, email and other services.

To enable this innovative camera experience, HTC developed a custom camera that includes a best-in-class f/2.0 aperture lens and a breakthrough sensor with UltraPixels that gather 300 percent more light than traditional smartphone camera sensors. This new approach also delivers astounding low-light performance and a variety of other improvements to photos and videos. In addition, the perfect self-portrait or video is just a tap away with an ultra-wide angle front-facing camera which supports 1080p video capture. Multi-axis optical image stabilisation for the rear camera also helps ensure video footage smoother whether stationary or on the move. HTC UltraPixel camera adds many other features and effects such as enhanced 360′ panorama, time sequencing and object removal.

HTC BoomSound

The new HTC One offers the best audio experience of any mobile phone available today. HTC BoomSound introduces for the first time on a phone, front-facing stereo speakers with a dedicated amplifier and an amazing full HD display that immerses people in music, videos, games and the YouTubeT clips they love. Beats AudioT integration is enabled across the entire experience for rich, authentic sound whether you’re listening to your favorite music, watching a YouTube video or playing a game.

HDR recording uses advanced dual microphones and audio processing to capture clean, rich sound that is worthy of high-definition video footage. Phone calls sound great on HTC One thanks to the addition of HTC Sense VoiceT, which boosts the call volume and quality in noisy environments so that conversations come through loud and clear.

HTC Sense TV

HTC Sense TV transforms the new HTC One into an interactive program guide and remote control for most TVs, set-top boxes and receivers. Tapping the power of the cloud, Sense TV makes it simple and intuitive to see what’s on and find that favourite show.

Metal Unibody Design

Wrapped in a zero-gap aluminium unibody and sporting a brilliant 4.7″, Full HD (1080p) screen,the new HTC One features the latest Android Jelly Bean operating system and LTE network technology to offer blazingly-fast browsing in a package that combines premium design with breakthrough build quality.

Available in stunning silver and beautiful black, the sleek and crafted aluminium unibody sits comfortably in the hand and showcases HTC’s unique antenna technology, which helps people achieve a crystal clear signal. The display also resists scratches and reduces glare, whilst offering incredible 468ppi resolution and rich, natural colours.

Global Availability

The new HTC One will be available globally through more than 185 mobile operators and major retailers in more than 80 regions and countries beginning in March. For more information and to pre-register for the new HTC One, visit www.htc.com.

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It looks like Archos will be jumping into the Android smartphone game. Some new intel and pictures have come out that solidify these rumours with some very detailed info. Here’s a quote,

The most interesting one is a Galaxy S III look-alike, the Archos 48 Platinum, a flagship device with a 4.8-inch IPS display with a 800 x 1,280-pixel resolution and the popular MediaTek MT6589 chipset with a 1.7GHz quad-core processor. The best thing about the Archos 48 Platinum is its price – it will only cost 249 euro (around $335) at launch, which is slightly more than a third of other flagship devices. The device will run on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Of course, the quad-core MT6589 is not quite on par with the Exynos 4412, but nonetheless its a pretty impressive chip for its price. Performance is expected to be around 50% to 60% of that of the Samsung device. The flagship Archos 48 Platinum will go on sale in May. Next on the list is the Archos 52 Titanium, a 5.2-inch Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich-based smartphone. It will obviously be an even more affordable solution given its 480 x 800-pixel display and dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 512MB of RAM. There is no info on its price yet though. Finally, Archos will also ship a purely low-end device in the form of the Archos 35 Carbon. This smartphone will feature a 3.5-inch 320 x 480-pixel screen, a single-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and 512MB of internal storage (expandable via microSD cards). The Archos 35 Carbon will run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and cost only 90 euro (around $120) at launch.

As you can see, Archos is not leaving its "budget-friendly" ideals behind. Still, the phones could be a relative bargain and it will be nice to see some upward-moving market pressure on pricing. If more of these inexpensive devices can start to make a dent, then the big dogs will have to get a bit more competitive with their pricing as well.

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Once again there are plenty of rumours circulating about the possible (likely) Samsung Galaxy S4. There is no denying the massive popularity of the Galaxy S3, and the S2 before it, so it only makes sense that Samsung would attempt to keep the momentum going with another iteration of the product family.

So the latest ‘information’ about the S4 is that it will have a 5″ FullHD Super AMOLED Plus screen with a pixel density eclipsing the retina displays from Apple. A Samsung Exynos Processor, that’s 8 cores, 4 Cortex A15 CPU’s and 4 A7’s. So designed to save power when you have light duty tasks but that can then be ramped up when performance is required. There’ll likely be 2GB ram and 32GB and 64GB memory models in the mix.

With the way the rest of the industry is going we can expect the S4 camera to be something like 12 or 13 megapixels simply to keep up with the 13MP offerings from the likes of Sony with the Xperia Z. Although I do wonder when we’ll be able to stop talking about megapixels and concentrate on optics and image quality!

MWC starts next week so I would expect to hear some big announcements from Samsung throughout that event but personally I think that we’ll hear about the S4 during the keynote.

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A visit to HTC’s website is met with a simple countdown on the homepage at the moment. The countdown of the expiry coincides with HTC’s press event being held on the afternoon of 19th February.

The exact details of the event are a closely guarded secret but it is expected that we are to be introduced to the much rumoured HTC M7 which is almost universally claimed to be the HTC One.

As always, I’ll be on had covering the event on Tuesday afternoon and will have full details as soon as I am able to share. For now it’s just a case of sit and wait and be hypnotized by the ticking down of the seconds!

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The new Sony Xperia Z may not yet be available to buy but thanks to Phones 4U, you can get your hands on it in one of its 300+ stores to try the phone out before it goes on sale.

I’m not aware of this being done with any other phone before so it’s a great opportunity to see what the phone is like before you go ahead and pre-order one. You can pre-order from today and the Xperia Z starts shipping on the 28th Feb.

This is a great idea and one that I hope to see in future with other handsets and manufacturers.